I was going through my old pictures (of my car, of course) and thought maybe you guys would be interested in my restoration project. Olders posts I made had pictures but most of them weren't arranged chronologically so I figured, maybe I'd post one that's arranged properly to give you guys an idea what the car has been through.

So here it goes...

After College, I wanted to buy a car, but I didn't know what. So I did what every kid knew best...surf the internet. I was a muscle car fan already and had a thing for mustangs but I was considering economy and tunability--yeah I was a Fast and the Furious fan, hey I was a kid, okay? Initially I was thinking hmmmm.... Toyota Corolla would be fine. So I research what I really wanted to do with a car... 1.) Tune the engine to make it a bit more powerful and more efficient, not necessarily overkill 2.) Customize the look to be unique 3.) Drift 4.) Rally 5.) Use it everyday. Going through that, I immediately eliminated the Corolla because of the Front Wheel Drive setup, also crossed out Automatic transmission...

I wanted a muscle car but I didn't want to ruine it's looks when I modified it, plus their hard to find and not economical. So I decided to buy something that has a muscle car look and feel but had a JDM tunability. So when I came accross this car on the net... it was for sale...

Wham!!! I had to buy it! I was too excited to be bothered with other details... which I later wish I had put more thoughts into. But I didn't know shit about cars anyway so I wouldn't probably noticed anyway. I travelled from Baguio to Manila and bought it the same day. I had it tuned-up (oil, spark plugs, oil filter, fuel filter and contact point) and drove off. The initial problem was the rust from the gas tank. It hadn't been driven for so long the tank rusted from the inside. So I had to change the fuel filter, had the tank openned and was scrapped from the inside. Then drove back to Baguio.

When I got the car back home, I tinkered with it and research and later on found out that:1.) The carb and intake manifold weren’t the original.2.) The breaks were from an L300 van. (Which were okay)3.) There were rust bubbles I didn’t notice before.

I had the following mechanical alterations done:1.) I had the 4g52 rebuilt2.) I replaced the carb with a brand new Toyota 5K carb. (I’m planning to upgrade to twin side draft Webers soon, that’s why I didn’t bother getting the original carb). Here’s a picture:3.) Replaced the manual fuel pump with an original brand new one.4.) I had the gas tank, cut open, scrapped and cleaned, and reduced the capacity from 60 to 40 liters.5.) Later on I broke the differential because I lost control when I was drifting around Baguio so I replaced it with the differential of a Toyota Lite Ace.6.) Recently, I had the front shock-absorbers replaced with originals.7.) I bought a new set of new (old) rims. I like the stance better with the offset. But one broke because of stupid road works done by the government. Here’s a picture:As you can see, it literally broke in two pieces.

So those are the mechanical updates I have from 2008 to 2011 so far…

Now let’s go over the body work I’ve done:So I bought the car like this:

Then I started with the dents and rust damages in the bumper:

Here you see the bumper painted with the closest imitation of chrome. Then I scraped, filled and painted the upper part of the doors because the rust bubbles there turned out to be worse than I thought. The rust ate through the metal. Not a good repair as you can see. I even put stripes to hide the lousiness of my fix. LOLHere’s a later shot. You can see the waves of improper filling and sanding. LOL

Then here, I bought the rims. I like the stance:If you look closely, you’ll also notice how some f*cking *sshole dented the panel just in front of the front right wheel. He/she even took the side guard with it. This happened while my car was parked.

Here’s the last picture of my car before I started major body works:

Then the repairs…Dismantled the front end.

This is actually the panel between the grill and front bumper. I noticed it was crooked a bit so I investigated. Guess what, the only thing holding it together was body filler.More holes from the same panel.

Some holes in the side. I cleaned, sanded, and painted them with inti-rust primer.

Here’s the panel below the bumper… in pretty bad shape.

Filled the holes with this aluminum patches.

Then filled the other side with shock resistant body filler.

Here are the front quarter panels scrapped, sanded, filled, and painted with the rust resistant primer.

Here’s the trunk lid scrapped. Sanded, filled, and painted.

I made patches to cover the holes in the bumper for the lights.

The bumper and panel below the bumper now fixed.

Passengers were complaining about the heat because of the very wide rear window so I decided to make a temporary rear window louvers:And the finished product...

Scraped the hood…

the roof…

Primered the roof and coloured it matt black (kinda looks like vinyl) and the hood is still in primer because there were some holes I needed to fill.

Then primered the hood.

The gap between the front windshield and hood is in bad shape.Even the pillar…

Then I went on to the rear quarter panels:

Mmmm…. Metally… Shinny…

You can see some old metal repairs done...

He didn’t really help with the paint removal, but it was amusing…

And a little help from my girlfriend. She’s actually applying the metal conditioner/rust converter.

More metal conditioner…

Then the epoxy primer… this thing’s really durable.

I couldn’t reach some rusted areas at the back end… so guess what I did. I’ve cut the panel out. LOLThat’s the spot…

The rear wheel wells were pretty rusted:So I had them fixed by a professional… since I didn’t have welding equipments.

Here’s the accident with the front right rim I was talking about earlier…There was a very deep hole in the middle of the highway because a road repair being done by the government. I was traveling at around 90 kph around 4am then BOOOM!!! The outer half of the rim came flying out… almost hit a by-stander and the car almost slid into a pond in the side of the road. Good thing I know how to control a sliding car (learned from a stupid accident, drifting around which broke the differential, as I mentioned earlier).

Here’s the car with the spare tire. We still had more than 10 hrs of driving after the accident…

So here’s the car today:With new second hand front rims and a primered body.

I use this car everyday... to work, and wherever I need to go to. And believe it or not, I even used it to go to work during the time i was scrapping the paint off--bare metal, when there were tapes all over the car, holding pieces in place, or when it was on the white epoxy primer. I didn't care. After all, this car never failed me so far, so why would I be ashamed if she's not yet done?

This December 2011, I’m planning to make a fullbody fiberglass kit… WISH ME LUCK!

I really like that homemade louver. I was thinking about making one for my Maxima. Good job!

-Thanks man. Yeah, its a good idea--it protects the glass and keeps the passengers cool. Plus it really helps if its raining and you dont have a rear window wiper.

kot wrote:

that's really wonderful! Good job you have done! Are you going to make it shiny again?

and the front side - fapfapfap looks great - want such car for myself =)

Don't like only the "venetian blinds" on the rear side..

-Thanks man. Yeah, I'm gonna make it shine like hell again once all body fabrications and repairs are done.

For the louvers, yeah, I know what you mean. This one doesn't look nice because I just made it myself. But I'm gonna make a fiberglass version soon. This one I made more for function--the passengers were complaining that it was too hot in the back. Plus if it weren't for the louvers, the rear window could have been busted right now. I parked the car once in a dark alley saturday night, some hulligans decided it was fun throwing rocks at each other. One rock hit my rear window, and the louvers got messed up a bit but the glass was just chipped.

Dave77 wrote:

Great car. Shame about that one rim - probably impossible to find a matching replacement.

-Yeah, those rims are hard to find here. But their not that super rare. But if I do find one, i doubt they'd sell just one or two pieces. *sigh*

Hi! goodday my frnd. I inherited my oldschool car from my dad. it has the original paint on it. never been overhauled and it has 351,450 kms.on it. I just installed new headers, put power steering from chop-chop boxtype. replaced master hydrovac from 76 galant. I also have the sidings redone and 2 front seats upholstered. just checked out my facebook william mapanao. k by the way, nice job on your lambda too.

great car..niceness..just my opinion dont loose the nostalgic look I'm not a fan of body kits for old school ..If I have your car I will go more on stance drop It and put on JDM rims 14's with wide tires on it to bring out the muscle look..then make it clean and neat interior and exterior..for engine mode headers and twinside..for exhaust 2"-3" pipe direct(para muscle n muscle)..This is only my opinion